Disclaimer: I don't own Fairy Tail, it belongs to Hiro Mashima.

Sorry for the late update...had a physics test on all the material we'd learned this entire year and anyone who knows me knows I'm really very very very very crap at it.

Divergent AU, Gray-centred. I tried to keep them in character while also weaving in some characteristics of their old factions, e.g. Gray—Candor, Lucy—Abnegation etc...

It's going to have some Gruvia, too!

This chapter will have some swearing and grownup humour (T rated, definitely) so watch out!

Well, enjoy and please leave a review!

Meant to Be

Chapter Two: A Whole Lot of Jumping

I did it. I chose Dauntless. I finally did it.

Running alongside my fellow Dauntless – it feels strange to say that, now – the massive pressure that has been pushing down all me all my life, it seems, lifts. Even though we've only just left the Hub, I feel like I'm miles away from my old life, reborn, free, all that shit. Wind in my hair, breathing hard, blood pumping—it feels like a part of me I've only just discovered. I relish the moment.

Man, does it feel good.

I'm not sure where we're running, actually, but I've got a guess: the train tracks. And I can only hope I'm wrong. Sure, I'd like to jump, but...

Lo and behold, in the distance, I see the old metal railways of the train tracks in the distance.

Well, isn't that just great. I want to slow to a stop, but I'd be the only one stopping, so I keep running with the group. There's only one representative here; he's tall and bulky and blond. I thought I saw a scar on his right eye earlier, at the Choosing Ceremony, but it might've been my imagination. The rest are all either Dauntless-born or transfers, and there's not many of us. I'm at the back of the group, with Cana and Natsu. We're nearing the train tracks and I'm starting to get worried because we're not stopping, not even slowing down a little. I swear I can hear the train in the distance, but I don't know, I might be making that part up.

Ok, so yeah, let me clear something up: I've said it before and I'll say it again if I have to. Yeah, I want to be Dauntless. I really do. I want to do ultra-cool reckless shit like start a bar fight, get a tattoo on my butt, jump off a cliff. Whatever it is they do, I want to do it. But I literally made the official decision to transfer two seconds ago. They expect us to jump onto a moving train when most of us can hardly even keep up with all this running?

Ok, I haven't made it up. There is a train coming. I can hear it now, but I don't see it yet.

I've seen the train before, and I know it's not actually that fast. If I jogged at a steady pace next to it, I could easily catch up. The problem is getting on. Do you...hold the bar? Jump on the actual rail? Do you go feet first, or hold on first? These questions buzz through my mind but I know it'd be stupid to ask them. After all, I didn't choose Erudite. Dauntless isn't about analysing everything you do. Sometimes you need to take a leap of faith.

...And that leap is about to come and I can tell you right now that I'm not ready for it.

Since we're at the back of the group, we get a clear example of how it's supposed to be done. Someone in black – a big guy with piercings and red eyes, Gajeel I think – opens a compartment door and effortlessly slides into it, followed by some others. I see a flash of short blue hair, followed closely by long locks of deep crimson. They're the Erudite transfers.

We're the last to get on and for a second I'm afraid that we – that I – won't make it.

"How the hell..." I hear beside me. Cana's furrowing her brows, her eyes moving rapidly back and forth as the train moves away, trying to find an opening.

We're running alongside the train now, not towards it anymore. I can see the end.

We're amongst the last people running.

I see a handle.

I breathe in. And out.

It's now or never.

In a sudden burst of energy and the familiar sensation of adrenaline, I grab onto a handle and pull myself up. It's actually much easier than I expected. Not easy, period; no, it still takes some effort – mostly to steady myself, so I stay balanced – but it's not as scary as I expected.

I'm on the train now, and lean against the compartment wall, sliding down towards the floor. I made it.

Cana joins me soon enough and sits next to me on the floor. Natsu's already on, though the stupid pink-haired idiot's face is not towards us, and his hand is outstretched towards something outside the train. He looks like he'll fall any minute. His scarf is caught in a sudden strong burst of wind, catching my attention, and I'm slightly worried he'll fall and, like, die. What's that Flame-Brain even doing?

After his arm muscles contract and he pulls up a flash of blond and grey, I see that he's helped the Abnegation out. Ironic, that.

She's a pretty thing; not exactly my type, but I can appreciate her looks. Her hair is in a bun, which has strands falling out, and her clothes are rumpled. Her long skirt is ripped – from what, I don't know – and she's lost her jacket, or cardigan, or whatever from earlier. Cana's lost her jacket – it lies on the floor, practically ripped in two, and the white is ruined by dirt – and Natsu's shirt is buttoned down all the way. Reminded by their loss of clothing, I look down and—

"Gray, your shirt," Cana says to me, pointing to my right.

I swear and stand up to grab it. Someone – a girl probably – wolf-whistles and I roll my eyes. I got quite a lot of attention back at Candor for losing my clothes. Now here, too? Would I never get a break for simply stripping?

As I retrieve my shirt from the floor – any dirt isn't really noticeable, since it's black – and pull it on. In the process I knock my elbow into someone, and they pull back.

"Oh, sorry." I'm not exactly very sociable or polite, but in Candor, it's frowned upon to apologize for no real reason, since it doesn't really do anything. "Needless apologies and being overly polite makes you stray from the truth, Gray," Lyon had once told me. So of course I apologize.

I meet two pairs of eyes – brown and hazel – and recognize the red and blue hair, contrasting so sharply. The red-haired girl is quite tall and has broad shoulders, and the blue-haired girl is short and looks almost like a child. I know she's sixteen, but she doesn't look it. Her eyes are very intelligent; she's the type of person you know is smarter than you and you don't hold it against them. Well, the two of them are Erudite, judging by their blue clothes, and you get that impression a lot with them. Both girls a kind of like that, though the red-haired girl has an aura that unnerves me for some reason.

Well, that, and the fact that she looks like she could totally take me without even breaking a sweat.

"That's fine," the red-haired girl says, referring to the apology and me whacking her in the face. Her voice is quite neutral, but deep and rich. She holds out her hand.

"Erza Scarlett," she introduces herself, though I already know her name. I shake her hand—her grip is surprisingly firm, probably without her even realizing it, but her hands are warm. They're not soft, like I'd expect of an Erudite—they're calloused and rough. I don't point it out.

"Scarlett indeed," I blurt out, referring to her hair. "Gray Fullbuster," I add hastily. Mentally I'm beating myself up. 'Socializing with your new faction-mates is already going like absolute shit, Gray,' I think to myself.

"I'm Levy McGarden," the blue-haired girl says. Her voice is as small as her physique.

"Erudite?" I ask, though I already know the answer. It's more courtesy, or just making conversation.

They nod. "You are Candor, right?" Levy asks.

I start to nod, then shake my head instead. "I was Candor," I correct her. She smiles apologetically.

Well, we get talking and even though Erza and I don't exactly say much, I feel like I've known her forever. I already know her – well, recognize her vaguely – from school. We were in the same class for history, English, and maths apparently, but I never paid much attention at school. We never talked, anyway. It was frowned upon and all that jazz. I guess that's not exactly a problem anymore.

Well, I invite them to sit with us and they come over, sitting on the floor next to Cana, who's drinking something from a flask that she got from who-knows-where. Cana and Erza seem to hit it off ok. Levy seems a bit shy, though that's not a surprise. I didn't exactly expect her to be very bold. Though she's surprisingly straight-forward, almost like a Candor. For the life of me, I can't understand why she chose Dauntless.

But we all have our reasons, I suppose.

Natsu and the Abnegation girl – Lucy, her name is – seem quite buddy-buddy as well. I don't know when they hit it off, but they look like they've been friends for a long time. They keep laughing, and looking at each other. It's weird.

Cana pipes up, "I noticed no one cried for you, when you transferred." At the redhead's expression, she scratches her neck and adds, "Sorry, bitchy thing to say, huh? Comes with being Candor."

Erza nods understandingly, though I can tell the subject is a bit personal. "No one to cry for me," she explains. Levy pats her friend's shoulder.

Cana tells me after we've settled down that she'd been shaking the entire time at the Choosing Ceremony, and was afraid she'd fall flat on her face, and not because of the alcohol. I could see some sadness in her eyes, probably because she'd lost her father forever. I must have the same sadness in mine, because she mutters something I don't catch, though I hear "Ur" and that's all I really need.

Natsu doesn't admit to anything, of course—dense bastard, thinking he's so cool and secure just because he's sure of what he wants, never regrets his decisions, doesn't look back...

Well, it's true, but still. He can't know that.

Then again, he might just be unconsciously trying to impress Lucy. But what the fuck do I know.

Lucy turns to Levy. "Don't you miss your parents, Levy?"

Levy's eyes turn sad. "Actually, I—"

Suddenly a voice that travels throughout the whole train compartment barks at us, "Dauntless! Get ready to jump!" It's the Dauntless representative. He has a scar, like I thought, on his right eye. It looks like it's shaped like a lightning bolt, though it might just be the light we're in.

I don't know what he means exactly by "jump", but I guess that means we're getting off. And since we're about forty feet above ground, I don't like the sound of that much.

I get even more confused when our representative, who is supposed to help us with these things, opens the door of the compartment and jumps out without so much as a word of explanation. We rush to the windows to see what happened, only to see him standing on the flat roof of a tall building opposite the rails, brushing some dirt off his shoulder. He shouts something, and I see quite a few people tense up and look around, waiting for someone to jump off first.

"Jumping?" Lucy asks, her expression shocked.

Erza seems to accept this rather quickly. "Well, we have to get off one way or another," she shrugs, and jumps.

Not even the Dauntless have jumped yet, and yet here she is, leaping of a fucking train onto a roof, which is about one-and-a-half, maybe two meters away. I'm amazed by the effortless way she did it; she just fucking jumped off a fucking moving train onto a freaking roof without batting an eye.

I decide I can't let Scarlett outshine me – and yeah, maybe I do feel a bit like a wimp right now – so I step back, clench my fists, and run until I'm at the edge and I leap.

There's a feeling in the pit of my stomach that doesn't leave, not even when I land on the gravel covering the rooftop. Erza gets up, dusting her skirt off, and gives me a hand, which I gratefully accept.

"Well done, guys!" a feminine voice says. We turn to see a white-haired woman – she looks a few years older than us – with blue eyes. Her peculiar hair colour is brought out by her dark grey but not quite black dress, decorated with bows. For some reason I think she'd look better in pink, but I have no clue where that idea comes from so I dismiss it.

"Mirajane Strauss," she introduces herself. "Dauntless representative. Sorry I couldn't make the ceremony. But that was quite a jump for your first time! Good job, you two." She smiles, and it would be almost contagious if I was the smiley type. Erza gives a small victory smile.

The original Dauntless jump next, landing on their legs and not on their backs like I had done. I see Gajeel, and that blue-haired girl that I compared to a pool. Like, twice. They dust themselves off and greet Mirajane, who they seem to be familiar with. Well, the white-haired woman seems like a nice person. She's very cheerful for a Dauntless, that's for sure.

Natsu is next, followed closely by Levy and Lucy, who have jumped together with their arms linked. Natsu manages some sort of decent landing – he rolls over a few times – and jumps up immediately, shouting about how he's "fired up."

When we've all arrived and the train has already passed us, Mirajane and the other representative, whose name, I've learned, is Laxus, call us together. We stand near a ledge with what looks like a hole in the roof that leads to who-knows-where. It's like an abyss, black as the clothes they wear, and when they tell us to jump I don't know what to say.

"Well?" Laxus says, his voice carrying over a few miles probably.

"Someone will have to go first," Mirajane says, glancing at Erza and me. Yeah, no, not happening. I'm not going to jump off the building I just got on. I need, like, five minutes first to remind myself I haven't died.

Well, someone seems to have other ideas up her sleeve.

"I'll go," someone behind me says, in a voice that's decisive and strong yet feminine and soft and why am I overanalysing voices here anyway? Point is she's going, she's going to jumo, so I won't be first.

Honestly, I am more than ok with that, especially when I look into the pit again.

I'm surprised when the Dauntless girl glides past me, blue hair flowing to the side in the wind. I see she has her jacket zipped up for some reason, and her hair is more wavy than curly, like I originally thought. Her jaw line is, like, really defined. That's weird. I don't know why I even said that.

She steps onto the ledge, her boot heel making a sharp sound on the cracked concrete. She looks down, holding out her arms to keep her balance. Like a cat or something. She looks behind her, at someone I'm assuming, before Laxus says, "Today, Lockser." Impatience creeps into his voice.

Lockser is her last name, then. Hm.

Not that I care.

I hear her take a breath. Her knuckles turn white as she clenches her fists, and she jumps.

Laxus turns to us with an unimpressed gaze. "Who's next?"

Um, about the first jumper thing...I was going to make it Gray, but it felt it was way too...I don't know. Even though the story is Gray-centred, I don't want it to be all about him, so I probably won't make him top of his training and everything. Ok? Ok!

Thanks for reading and please leave a review!